


Awaken

by DevinTowerwood



Series: Awaken [1]
Category: Life Is Strange, Mage the Awakening, Vampire the Masquerade - Fandom, World of Darkness - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Magic, bodyswitching, bunny!Kate, trans!Victoria - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-23 06:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4867391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevinTowerwood/pseuds/DevinTowerwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alteration of the Original Universe, Max Caulfield did not hesitate to contact Chloe once she came back. Her powers developed earlier, and she and Chloe successfully averted the destruction of Arcadia Bay. Nevertheless, danger still lurks, and Chloe's powers as a mage awaken. This is a much sillier tale, and I have no idea what direction I'll take it - it is designed purely on requests sent to me on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prompt: What if somebody switched Victoria and Kate's personalities?

You would think that, at some point, somebody might try and stop Chloe from roaming around Blackwell either during school hours or not, but nobody really seemed to care. This might be due to the laziness of the security staff, the familiarity of the faculty, or just the presence of David Madsen, but it still remained that nobody ever kicked her out when she spent her lunches laying against a tree or in Max’s lap. She had every glaring symbol of a troublemaker, and her sleeve tattoo was in direct violation of the school’s dress code, and she rarely wore anything but a tank top, and yet she and Max spent their lunches together in full view.

“Here, sit up Chloe, let’s get a selfie.”

Chloe sighed, tapping her forehead with her palm. “You know, we don’t have to take a selfie every single day.” Nevertheless, she reached off to her side and grabbed her blue beanie, pulling herself up just enough that her body fell onto Max’s.  
“Ugh, ah, Chloe, nobody will be able to see me if you’re crushing me.”

Chloe only smirked and raised her middle fingers up, and Max did her best to shuffle into view. Finding this futile, she just exhaled and pulled her polaroid out in front of them, snapping a picture.

“Well there they are, the selfie sluts photo-fucking out in public again.”

Dazed by lack of oxygen as Chloe slipped off of her, Max did not instantly recognize that this sort of excellent alliteration could only be contributed to one person, so she was a little surprised to see Victoria, Courtney, and Taylor passing by.

“Well, it’s good to see your fine ass out here too, Vicky, why don’t you come take a selfie with us?” Chloe’s smirk was immense, and her middle fingers darted up with her grin as she requested the selfie. She also made a really, really clear point of staring right at Victoria’s butt, forcing Victoria to either walk backward, face them, or take the stare.  
She just scoffed, but didn’t find a comeback in time, so the trio just walked on by, and Chloe got her eyeful of booty.

Max indicated how gross-out she was, and Chloe leaned back against her. “Oh, shush, sexual harassment is the only way to get her to lay off. She can feel the sexual tension and her tongue just loses the ability to speak.”

Max sighed a little, aware that she should never have shown Chloe the show Misfits, as she had been trying far too hard since then to duplicate the exact personality of Nathan (from the show) to decent success. “And what would you want her to do with how you respond?”

Chloe shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d be cool if she just, like, went head-down and by like Kate instead of making bitchy comments. I wouldn’t escalate if she didn’t start it, shit.”

–

They continued to chat for a moment, but then Max felt a vibration in her pocket, and she withdrew her phone. She was really confused by the message on the other friend.

> **Kate:**  lol like thanks for the tea BUT WE’RE NOT FRIENDS k bye

Max sat there and blinked for a moment, then checked the Profile section to make sure that somebody (Chloe) hadn’t gone into her phone contacts and switched the names around. Nope, the message was totally from Kate.

> **Max:**  uhhh, Kate? We’re totally friends, what are you saying? You’re like my best friend. It’s not like you to troll.
> 
> **Kate:**  yeah totally but I’m starting to think you’re lezzing out on me and I’m not into that sooooo
> 
> **Max:**  I’m not … lezzing out? What’s up with you?

Kate, however, did not respond, and Max was left terribly confused.

–

Later, in photography, Max noticed even more strangeness from Kate. She sat about as close to the center of the class as possible, instead of close to the window, and she leaned back in her chair, placing her elbows on the desk behind her. Not only did this seem unusually self confident, but it was also unlike Kate to sit or stand in any position that put emphasis on her large breasts, but this highlighted both her legs and her breasts a great deal. Several other students seemed to take notice of this, including Victoria and Daniel deCosta, although Max also noticed Mr. Jefferson turning his attention towards her much more often than normal.

The extra weird thing, though, was how Victoria was responding to it. Ordinarily, she’d have her arms outspread at any given moment to increase her physical presence in the room, and if somebody was outspoken or aggressively postured, she or Taylor would shut them down. But, instead, Victoria’s hands sat on her legs, her head was leaned down, and she kept making slight glances at Kate during the lecture out of the corner of her eye.

After class, Max thought it would be a good idea to talk to Kate about whatever was going on, but to her surprise, the tiny blonde just shoved all of her school supplied into a bag with one sweep of her arm, stood up, and seemingly stalked Mr. Jefferson to his desk. Meanwhile, Victoria was picking up each piece of work she had and individually placing it in her bag, for some reason avoiding eye contact with Taylor as they stood and talked.

When Mr. Jefferson arrived at his desk, Kate slowly stooped until her elbows came into contact with the desk, bringing her ass into relief for everyone else in the room. Again, Victoria started to make slight glances, but never openly or mentioning it to Taylor, at Kate’s unusual behavior.

Max nervously approached while Jefferson and Kate were engaged in conversation, but found herself unable to interject into the scene, so she sort of scooted off to the side for Kate to notice her. At one point, Kate’s eyes did flick over to Max’s, but a smirk just curled on her lips and she went back to talking with Jefferson.

And so, after a few more seconds of nervous shuffling, Max turned around and left the room. On the other side of the door, however, she was greeted by an unusual sight - with her eyes somewhat downturned, and her hands wrapped around her bag in her hands as well as over her shoulder, Victoria stood alone, apparently having asked Taylor to go on ahead.

Victoria’s eyes flicked up to Max, then back down. “Hey Max. I’m really sorry about earlier - that was really rude of me to talk about you and your girlfriend that way.”

Max looked down at her palms as if they would hold some answers, but then she just shifted her weight to her other leg, scratched the back of her neck, and said, “That’s … okay Victoria? Or, apology accepted I guess? What’s gotten into you - did Chloe go too far?”

Then, something sort of amazing happened - Victoria blushed and continued to look down. Max got a powerful feeling that something was very, very wrong.

“Oh, no, I was just being … not very nice so I wanted to say I’m sorry. I think you’re both pretty cool, actually.”

Max pursed her lips and frowned a little, expecting this to be some sort of set up. She tapped Victoria on the shoulder, knowing that this would rankle her even if it was all an act. Still, Victoria didn’t flinch. “Well, maybe you and Chloe should just talk through your sexual attraction and you’d stop being bitches to each other.”

Victoria only went redder, her eyes on her feet. “I don’t … it’s not like that,” she protested quietly.

Then, the door opened, and Kate found herself a little blocked off by these two. She looked up at the other girls, then raised a single eyebrow quizzically. “Looks like the hallway is stuffed with lesbians. Don’t mind me, rock on,” she started to scoot past Max, who let her out, and once she was free, she made the symbol of rock for a moment, then turned it towards herself, dropped her pinky and raised her middle finger, darting her tongue in the V of her fingers suggestively.

Then, she snickered, and walked down the hallway.

Max stared after her bewildered. “What in the world is going on?”


	2. Prompt: What if Chloe turned Kate into a bunny?

Once Max escaped from the new, shy Victoria, she picked up her phone to text Chloe.

> **Max:**  chloe, something really weird is going on with victoria and kate.
> 
> **Chloe:**  i knew it  
>  **Chloe:** i knew there was homoerotic tension there  
>  **Chloe:** i bet Kate’s a top
> 
> **Max:**  >< No, like, they’re acting super weird. Kate’s making sexual innuendo and hitting on Mr. Jefferson. Victoria is not making eye contact and apologizing.
> 
> **Chloe:**  wow, shit. also no emoji but shit. that’s hella weird.  
>  **Chloe:**  do you think it’s a prank?
> 
> **Max:**  kate would not pick up suggestive posturing that easily for the sake of a prank
> 
> **Chloe:**  well, i did say that victoria should act more like kate, maybe she got the message
> 
> **Max:** …  
>  **Max:**  chloe, you said victoria should act more like kate.
> 
> **Chloe:**  yeah, so?
> 
> **Max:**  remember that time with the storm? The time you nearly wiped out Arcadia Bay?
> 
> **Chloe:**  hey, hey now, that was theoretical. never happened. i don’t care if you say you rewound i’m pretty sure i didn’t nearly wipe out the town by wishing it
> 
> **Max:**  well, where are you? your car’s in the lot.
> 
> **Chloe:** in your dorm room. come now.
> 
> A moment later, Max received a selfie from Chloe, and as she left the parking lot, her face turned red, and she looked up from her hunched over, reading posture to make sure that no one was around to see it in all of its beautiful salaciousness. Then, she texted back.
> 
> **Max:**  i’m coming
> 
> **Chloe:**  well, get here before you start doing that.  
>  **Chloe:**  ;)  
>  **Chloe:**  that does not count as an emoji due to the circumstances

* * *

 

Chloe was the best big spoon. Her arms were long enough that they could hold Max’s outstretched ones, as she hated having them close to her body in bed and often extended well outwards. Even with just one arm she could wrap around almost Max’s entire body and hold her tight, or let her fingers drift over Max’s warm skin, tickling her, but always snuggling closer after Max’s tickle-giggles emerged to keep her from fleeing. She was also so goddamn warm all of the time.

Chloe finally began to work back into their previous conversation, “So, you think it’s because of me that Kate and Victoria are acting weird?” Her fingers splayed out for a moment across Max’s ribcage, slightly sticky against the smoothness until they came back together along Max’s sternum, and then she left only a single finger on Max’s skin, tracing a line down onto Max’s belly.

Max shrugged as well as she could given the circumstances. “I think you and Arcadia report that goes beyond your typical … communication with the universe.”

Chloe drummed her fingers on Max’s stomach, above her belly button. “That sounds like … well, bullshit, kinda? How would that even work?”

Max again, shrugged, not really having answers - or at least not ones that made much sense. “Well, when I flashed forward to the storm, you said you wanted to drop a bomb on Arcadia Bay. A bomb didn’t appear, but your intent to destroy manifested from the land.”

Chloe’s lips pursed and she hummed for a moment. “So, like, if I make a wish, it comes true?”

Max didn’t feel like that was how it worked, but she certainly didn’t have a better explanation.  “I guess?” was all she added, unconvinced but thinking it would make more sense if Chloe came upon the solution.

Chloe sat up, her knees and legs failing to spoon Max quite as effectively, so Max sat up beside her. Chloe dragged herself to the edge of the bed and planted her feet down on the still-awful rug.

“Okay, so … I’ll make a wish, something easy to see if it comes true.”

She took a moment to ponder, breathing loudly while she tried to come up with something. So she decided to go for something big: “I wish Rachel was here,” she said. They waited a moment in silence, but, unsurprisingly, nothing happened. They both exhaled as they realized nothing would happen, either.

Still, Chloe didn’t want to give up on this possibility quite so easily. She said, on a lighter, easier note, “I wish  _The Brother’s Karamazov_  would fall off of Max’s desk right now.”

Nothing.

“Awww, whatever,” Chloe whimpered, and fell back in bed, her arms outstretched as far behind her as they could be before hitting the wall.

Max, more delicately, curled up beside Chloe and wrapped an arm around her waist, running a finger along her tattoo’s many shapes while she tried to find the right words. “Maybe … Kate and Victoria were just being weird? I mean, I guess it could have been a prank, I guess?” She didn’t really believe it, but this route was only going to frustrate Chloe more.

Chloe shook her head, sighing. “Nah … I mean, Victoria’s would never apologize and Kate is just a fluffy bunny. It doesn’t make much sense - it’s not like they’re great friends to coordinate this sort of thing, anyway.”

Outside, they heard a loud cry, and then a light thump of something heavy hitting the floor. Startled, they both sat up again, and after looking at each other’s bright eyes for a moment, started to dress.

Outside, they heard from what sounded like Victoria, “Oh my goodness! What happened?” It sounded both extremely startled and concerned, things that rarely came from Victoria willingly

Once passably dressed (Max = jeans + hoodie, no time for bra or shirt, just zip it up; Chloe = jeans + bra + white tank), the duo made their way out into the hallway, and found Victoria, Dana, and Juliet all inspecting a lumpy pile of fabric near the entrance of the dorms. They made their way over, and Chloe called, “Yo, what’s up with the laundry, guys?”

Victoria’s hand covered her mouth and she did not take her eyes off the pile of clothes, eyes wide in horror. No one else seemed to really understand what was going on either, but once Max and Chloe were over to the laundry pile, they realized it was lumpy because something was moving inside of it. Just a small something, but … still. Also, after a moment of inspection, they realized that it was Kate’s clothes - her cross stuck out from under the shirt.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” Chloe asked, and Max crouched down in front of the laundry, and began to push the clothes aside to try and see what was under them. She quickly realized that whatever it was was inside of them, not underneath, and when she opened up the shirt at the neck, she was startled to find a small, yellow-brown bunny shaking and staring back at her.

“Oh my lord …” Max whispered, and curled up the shirt a little to unbutton the top few buttons, before reaching in and extracting the bunny, lifting it up into her arms and cradling it gently. “Ssshh, sshh little bunny …”

However, Chloe was not so gentle. She leaned down to look the bunny as straight in the face as possible, a look of glee on her face. “Motherfucker NO WAY!”


	3. Prompt: Alice and bunny!Kate interact

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god this is so awesome.” Chloe had picked up Alice and, after several minutes of bouncing her lightly in her arms (it’s not like she has a clue how to treat a bunny, yeesh, they’re just fluffy) before Max finally recommended that they take bunny!Kate to her bedroom.

“Can anyone explain what’s going on?” Victoria asked, eagerly trying to look over Chloe’s shoulder as she walked, making sure that the bunny was still safe. Max trotted the first ahead, opening the door to let Chloe into Kate’s room. Victoria moved to follow, but Max put her arm in the way of Victoria at the door’s entrance.  
Victoria shot a distressed look at Max. “Huh? Come on, I just want to make sure she’s safe.”

Max did not precisely respond, but she did not drop her arm. Victoria could easily pushed past her if she wanted, but she was instead quick to withdraw from the conflict. Then, Max spoke up, “Did you see what happened?”

Tori’s eyes darted around a little as she tried to think. “Sort of, I guess? I was coming in after Kate. I didn’t see exactly what happened but, as soon as I was in the door, her clothes were just on the floor and there was that … bunny.” She just seemed really distressed. “I know this sounds weird, but is that Kate?” She stared past the little Max at the little bunny on Chloe’s lap, as Chloe had just sat down cross-legged on the ground so she could pet the lightly-colored bun properly.

Max was not sure what sort of lie she could come up with in this instance. She also didn’t feel like using her rewind for a situation she did not understand, and trying to keep Victoria from seeing anything while still containing the Kate situation would require a heavy rewind as well as an awkward break in their post-sex cuddling and discussion of supernatural events.  
So she just sighed. “Yeah, it’s Kate. Come on in,” she dropped her arm until Victoria was inside, then closed the door.

“Hey, uh, Kate-Vic, would you mind getting Alice out of her cage? I think we could have a real special moment here.”  
Victoria cocked her head to the side. “Who’s Alice?” She asked quietly, looking around the room.

Max gestured towards the cage on the left of the room, “The bunny, Tori.”

“Oh.”

Victoria was not protesting about any nicknames, not even the unusual Kate-Vic one. She just kept her chin sort of low and retrieved Kate’s bunny from her cage, and settled down across from Chloe, placing the little bun in her lap to pet. Max sat on the bed next to them.

After a moment, Chloe lifted up the bunny!Kate and tried to make it look into her eyes. This does not work very well, but she holds her still enough to ask, “Now, Katie, tell me about my mystical powers and how to control them. Be my furry sage.” As Kate was pretty silent in response, Chloe just chuckled a little and sat her down off her lap. A second later, Victoria got the cue and sat Alice down next to Kate so the two could interact.  
 _Personally, I don’t know much about bunny interactions and it’s been years since I had my pet bunny, so I’m not elaborating much there. Sorry._

Victoria’s eyes flitted up to Chloe, and then back down to the bunnies. “So, um, why is Kate a rabbit?”  
While Victoria might not be able to meet Chloe’s gaze very well, Chloe had no difficulty checking out her new, modified, docile Victoria. A smirk crossed her face, even as she became aware that she really shouldn’t abuse this power else she would rapidly cross major ethical lines

“I said it, and so it happened.” Chloe did her best to deliver this line super casual, looking a little away from Victoria as Victoria’s eyes snapped back to Chloe, although keeping her in her vision well enough to evaluate her reaction.

Max elaborated a little more, “It looks like Chloe has some sort of instant gratification in response to phrases or ideas she expresses. The universe forces her thoughts into reality.”

Victoria’s eyes were on Max while she spoke, but they were quickly back to Chloe. She leaned forward a little, and her eyes were wide. “Whoah … doesn’t that sort of make you, I don’t know, like a god though?”

Chloe super casually inspected her fingernails. “Well, I don’t know if you’d say that. I might be a god. I mean, I did completely fuck up your free will in a way, so I’ve got Bruce Almighty beat.”

For once, an expression commonly present on Victoria’s face returned - a narrow-eyed glare of suspicion. “What do you mean you took away my free will?”

Chloe’s casualness broke, and her eyes darted around for an excuse. She, as would make sense, looked to Max for guidance, or, better yet, a rewind. Max shook her head, and gave her a ‘You got yourself in this situation’ look.

Chloe scratched the back of her head, ruffling her blue hair a little. “I … uh. At lunch I kinda said maybe you should be more like Kate. And. Um.” She gave Victoria a pointed look, as if she should totally recognize that her personality had been entirely subverted by some offhand remark of Chloe’s.

Victoria’s arms slowly wrapped their way around her body, and after a moment of staring at Chloe, she looked down past even the bunnies, down at her legs. “Why can’t you like me for how I am?” She murmured, but did not offer any more noticeable, stronger response.

Chloe again looked around awkwardly, not sure how to respond to that. Especially with it having been so quiet. So, she started in the same quiet sort of stage whispering, “Well … I do.” Then, she raised the voice into a normal volume and said, “But don’t worry, I’m going to fix this all. As soon as I understand how.”

Max was looking down at the bunnies. “And as soon as you clean up Kate’s poop.”

Chloe stared down at the pebble-like mess that had formed on the carpet while she hadn’t been looking. “Ah, shit, fuck, gross.” She dragged herself back away from the rabbits a little scoot. “Kate, be a human again. Be yourself.” 

Nothing happened. Chloe pouted. “My power sucks.”

Victoria looked down at the bunnies. “Well … I can help take care of these two until you get, you know, that whole thing sorted out.”

Max nodded, “I can help with that. I’m sure Kate would like to get back to being a human as soon as possible, but, until then, we’ve got to make sure she stays safe.”

Victoria looked at the cage to her left. “We’re going to need a bigger cage for the two of them, huh?”


	4. Prompt: Dana meets bunny Kate

It was up to Victoria to retrieve the new cage, seeing as she was one of the few who was informed of the situation and also not randomly altering reality when she talked. Bonus, she had a car.

She, to be perfectly honest, had no clue what was going on, but she trusted Chloe and Max. She was a little unsure why - she knew she hardly trusted them before things started getting weird, but ever since this afternoon, she had felt awfully strange. The aggression and disdain she felt mixed in with her feelings with the blue-haired punk seemed cleaned out, but she also detected a lot more anxiety in herself than normal. Seeing her was exciting, it was always exciting, but generally that made her feel powerful, embarrassed at the very worst. But now she found herself self-conscious, checking her nails, unable to make eye contact. It was easier to take this drive alone, than to try and understand why she was feel this way. Was this what Kate felt all the time? It was stressful just to function, but not like it was for Victoria. Victoria held herself in check, held herself back. Right now, she was struggling to move forward.

Chloe knocked on Dana’s door with small, rapid knocks, but when Dana answered, she just stood with an awkward smile on her lips.  
“Yeah, Chloe?”

Chloe sort of shrugged, but then realized she hadn’t thoroughly prepared to give directions to Dana without the aid of speech, so she just spoke clipped, “Hey, Danny. I shouldn’t talk much because I’m magic. But you keep cleaning supplies handy, right?”

Dana gave her a really weird look, twisting her eyebrows quizzically and folding her hands together in front of her body (DA:I posture, yo). “Yeah, I do. What do you need them for?”

Chloe shrugged again, but Dana was one of few people actually willing to keep supplies she purchased on hand, so she sighed and elaborated, “I turned Kate into a rabbit and she pooped.” Something about this curled her lips into a smile she tried to repress, as if any powerful expression would result in the world being altered. Obviously, this wasn’t true, as she’d had sex like forty five minutes ago and nothing had gotten too out of hand, it had to be innate to the words. “Wanna come see?”

Dana shook her head and scrunched up her face, “Ew, no, I don’t want to clean up poop for you. What do you mean you turned Kate into … wait,” it dawned on her what she’d seen half an hour ago. “What?”

When they came into Kate’s room, Max sat on the edge of Kate’s bed with her legs crossed, and she had a notepad out with a pen onto which she seemed to be documenting things. Alice sat in her lap, while Kate had been moved to the cage due to the fact that she had so little experience being a bunny.  
Kate glared out at the little procession, come to judge her when it was their fault she was in this state! Gods, it was so hot in this tiny little body, and it was super embarrassing to be seen like this.

Max had put her away with her low, low voice, saying she was going to work out a system before she let Kate back out, and Kate had spent most of the time complaining about it as well as she could, which wasn’t very well. She had absolutely refused to consume the food and water provided, as she was not about to share germs with a pet, even if it was Alice - ew!

Dana waved as she entered - “Hey … Kate?” and then turned to approach the cage, leaning down as if to look Kate in the eye. Ugh, really? Dana was going to pay attention to her now that she wasn’t even human? Honestly, the girls around here were such backstabby bitches - she was probably going to say something super snobby while she had the opportunity. But Kate would not be putting up with it when she got out. “Well … if it’s really you, you’re so cute.”  
Oh, sure Dana, I’m sure that’s not patronizing.

“Can I let her out of the cage?” Dana asked, turning to Max. Chloe was getting down onto the floor, unnecessarily prepared with both of her hands in thick kitchen gloves along with a full bucket of supplies. She had never really learned an appropriate level of cleaning for a situation.

Max shook her head - “Not yet. I’m trying to devise a communication system for Kate, if she can still understand us. I’m also trying to figure out how to make Chloe’s power work. It doesn’t seem to have any motion requirement, just a verbal one.”

Dana looked at Max for a pretty long moment. “O … kay?”

Dana seemed to fixate on Kate’s little nose at the edge of the cage, and leaned forward a little so her nose nearly touched Kate’s. When she breathed, it was nice. It wasn’t like being too close to someone’s breath as a person. Kate sniffed a little.

“Alright, Chloe, so when you turned Kate into a rabbit, you said ‘Kate is a bunny’, or something really close to that. It was present tense. And it utilized ‘to be’, unlike your other attempts, that used ‘wish’ as a verb. However, when you told Kate to be a bunny, you also used ‘to be’, but it was a command, as opposed to a statement of fact. With that in mind, Dana, could you take Kate out of her cage?”

Dana finally broke the contact with Kate, somewhat to Kate’s disappointment. However, she was happy when the cage opened, and Dana picked her up, setting her down on the ground while crouching down to pet her.

Max exhaled loudly from her mouth, looking at her notes. “Okay, so, Kate. We’re going to be using yes or no questions to talk to you to make sure we don’t mess anything up. Stand on your haunches for yes. Walk forward for no. I don’t want to try anything complicated if you don’t know how to use your body.”

It was fair to say that she didn’t, so that was appreciated. Nevertheless, she took the recommendation to try and stand on her haunches, and was pleased to discover that she was fully capable of this so long as she was still. It felt weird, this version of uprightness, because it felt like a stressful version of sitting as a human … but, all right.   
This would be the only time Max got to boss her around, though. Because she was a bunny.

“Right, so, do you understand? Or, uh, do you NOT understand, because you’re already up?”   
Kate was a little confused by this grammatically, but then fell down to all fours and took a single step forward, then paused.

Max nodded. “Right, well, that seems right. I think. Kate, is that you?”

Kate stood on her haunches, and Max nodded again. Both Chloe and Dana squeeeee’d a little. Max pet Alice a little to keep her calm around all this excitement. Alice licked her hand back, and Max rewarded her by scratching her behind the ears.

“Okay, Kate, we’re going to try and turn you back into a human.” She turned her attention now to Chloe, who was just finishing up cleaning, having used a grant total of one of the substances in the bucket, but seeming very stressed about the whole thing. “Try saying ‘Kate is a human’”

Chloe looked over at her, then wiped her forehead with her forearm. “Kate is a human? Ahhh … right, yeah, Kate is a human.”

And Kate was a human. She was a completely naked 5′4″ dirty blonde with little waves of gorgeous hair falling down to her shoulders. Dana jumped back a little, and Chloe only caught a small sight of her before she turned around, and and her jaw dropped.  
Then her lips curled into a smile, while Kate recoiled, wrapping her arms over her chest and falling down to the ground.

“Dan, Katie, your bo-” Chloe never got to finish. Max raised her hand into the air, and everything was pulled back.

“Kate is a human?” Chloe asked.

Max quickly snapped, “Yeah, yeah, but not yet, Chloe. Can you two step outside - Dana, Chloe? It would be best if we gave Kate some decency when she changes back. It’ll work.”

A grin crossed Chloe’s face as she looked at Max, realizing what had just happened. Kate, on the other hand, was left pretty confused - not to mention a bunny.

She was thankful when Max draped her blanket over her as soon as she heard ‘Kate is a human’ from the other side of the door, and she suddenly found herself standing 5′ taller than a moment before. Max’s eyes stared up to the ceiling, and Kate wrapped the blanket around her quickly.  
“Thanks, Max. You never mentioned your girlfriend was a witch.”

Max shrugged, then looked at Kate, as she was now free to without being too weird. “We weren’t really sure about it until today, as you might have noticed.”

Kate felt a little weird with the little bit of fabric between her and Max, inches away. Normally, she would be filled with inhibition, but right now …   
“Hey, Max? Look at me for a second, I want to make sure there’s nothing bunny-ish remaining.”

Max seemed a little confused for a moment, but when Kate smirked and dropped the blanket, that seemed to fade away. Her eyes went wide, and her flabbergast expression pleased Kate, both in the power she felt from it as well as the appeal.   
She turned slowly, turning her head a little to keep an eye on Max: “I haven’t got a tail, now have I?”

“I, uh, uhm …” Max was quiet for a moment, and then she raised her right hand.

Kate was thankful when Max draped her blanket over her as soon as she heard ‘Kate is a human’ from the other side of the door, and suddenly found herself standing 5′ taller than a moment before. However, as Kate pulled the blanket around her, she was a little surprised to find Max quickly grabbing the door handle. “Yeah, see you in a bit, Kate, we’ll get this sorted out,” and she was left with a bit of a pout as she closed the door on her.

“Well, whatever …” Kate murmured, as she dropped the blanket and started to pick up her clothes.


	5. Prompt: So, what if Chloe called Victoria a bitch?

Victoria’s hands were still full with her wallet and card when her phone vibrated. She stepped away from the PetCo counter and stuffed them away, leaving the cage on the counter for just a moment.

> **Max:**  Yeah, we don’t need the cage anymore. We turned Kate back.
> 
> **Victoria:**  ….  
>  **Victoria:**  K

Victoria gave a shy smile to the girl across the counter. “So, um, I’d like to make a return …”

* * *

 

When she got back, she knocked on Kate’s door, but the answer came slowly. And what she found was very anticlimactic, but almost exactly what she was hoping to see - Kate, completely human, her hair back up, alone in her room. She didn’t exactly look pleased to see Victoria, though.  
“Hey, Kate.”  
Kate visibly rolled her eyes, but realized without her ability to dominate space, it would be difficult to control the situation. So she just tried to get Victoria’s eyes to meet hers, but they were very avoidant. “Oh, hey Victoria,” Kate greeted with a sneer.  
“Welcome back to being a person,” she said. Not that she particularly liked Kate as a person, but it couldn’t be all that great being such a small, fragile, fluffy thing … you know, other than Kate as a person. It was just nice that she was safe.

“Yeah, okay,” Kate dismissed, looking past Victoria into the hallway. “So, we should probably go get Chloe to switch our personalities back before any more people notice.”

They started walking down the hallway, and Victoria said, “It’s been tough … being like you.”  
Kate shrugged as she walked along, dismissively. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t awesome being a rabbit, either.”  
Victoria just kept quiet further. Clearly Kate wouldn’t talk to her about what she was experiencing. She just had to wonder if she would remember these feelings when Chloe restored her personality.

Kate was just a second from knocking when Max called, “Come in Kate, Victoria,” and she slowly lowered her hand, a little surprised. Chloe snickered inside. Max always seemed to know who was approaching her room and whether or not they intended to knock - it was so weird. But, Kate was a new Kate, so she did not pause in awe; she just grasped the handle and moved inside.

“You’re going to have to explain to me how that trick works sometime,” Kate commented as she entered, but Max just shook her head - both she and Chloe sat on her bed.  
It smelled like sex in here. Which is often did, to be honest. Chloe’s stepfather was a lot more accommodating to Chloe being out of the house than to walking in on Max on her face.

Chloe was too eager for much ceremony, so she lifted the piece of paper in her hand up towards her face (she was nearsighted but refused to wear glasses), and read aloud: “Kate Marsh and Victoria Chase, your personalities are as they were this morning before I switched them.”

Kate took a step back as if she had been struck, but Victoria’s arms just raised and crossed over her chest. “You better’d believe it.”

Kate’s hand became clasped over her mouth. “Oh, gosh! Max! Victoria! I’m so sorry about that gag earlier in the hall. That was really inappropriate. I’m sorry.” Kate sat down on Max’s couch as if collapsing.

Victoria looked bemused, but patted Kate on the head. “Oh, don’t worry about it - that was funny. Our selfie queen here was probably just trying to get into my pants for her girlfriend. She strikes me as the type to watch.”

Chloe smirked, leaning back and supporting herself on her arms: “Well, how’d she do then? Let me know if she’s making progress.”

Kate blushed, and looked towards the door, both out of awkwardness of the situation as well as her involvement/noninvolvement in what was happening. She just felt really awkward about everything that had just happened - she had been a bunny! In public! She pooped on her own floor!

Victoria did a rather quick set of gestures: first, she tugged down her own eyelid and stuck out her tongue in a way that too strongly indicated her extreme secret weeaboo life - then, she dropped her hand down and formed the same V in her fingers that Kate had earlier, and delicately licked without touching her fingers between them. Then, she dropped her index finger and pushed her middle finger out towards Chloe.  
“Fuck off til later, Price.”

Chloe rolled her eyes as Victoria left the room, turning her attention back to humanKate!Kate. “Don’t worry, Kate. She’s a total bitch, you’re not.”

They heard another thump from outside the room, and grins came across Max and Chloe’s faces almost simultaneously. Kate seemed confused, and stood up with a, “What was that?”

Chloe was up and out first, with Max quickly in tow. Kate waddled behind them, peeking around the corner outside of Max’s room.

A large dog, probably a golden retriever akita mix, stood, draped in Victoria’s clothes, its hind legs sticking out of her skirt and its eyes stuck inside the collar of her shirt.  
Chloe was literally on the floor at this point, pounding the ground as she laughed. Max giggled while holding her stomach, but it was only Kate that actually approached the big fluffy dog and unbuttoned the shirt a little so Victoria could see.

“Awww! Poor Victoria,” she said, scratching her behind the ears.   
Victoria just glared up at Chloe, and then started growling, completely ignoring Kate.

And then, she pounced on the laughing Chloe, who barely seemed to notice: “Oh! No, puppy, puppy no, haha, okay, okay, shit, okay, Victoria, oh my god. You’re a human, not a dog, you’re just kinda rude.”

And then, Victoria was a person again, except her clothes now fit horrendously - her shirt was unbuttoned with her arms out the top of it instead of in the sleeves, and her sweater was stretched so that her head and arms all emerged from it. Her bra hung haphazardly, still strapped to her but diagonal, only fulfilling half of its function. Her nails were against Chloe’s chest, who still hadn’t stopped laughing, and Kate immediately jumped, looking away.

Victoria sat in shocked silence at her condition - on top of Victoria, only two pieces of clothing still fulfilling their function, dangerously close to ripping her cashmere.

Max was the first to break the quiet, “You know, I am the sort to watch.”

And that did it. Kate said “oh my lord” and looked away from the scene, Chloe bust out laughing, and Victoria threatened, “I am so going to kill you all for this …”


	6. Prompt: What if Chloe said 'Rachel is here'?

Once everything had become settled down, it was just back to Max and Chloe hanging out in Max’s room. When she wanted to, Chloe could eat up a lot of space, and right now she was sprawled across Max’s bed in such a way that Max wasn’t even going to attempt to sit or lay on it. Max, instead, sat on her couch, staring at her hands far too much while she tried to work out a piece for Music Lab the following day. It’s not like she was looking to become Dick Dale, but a lot of the sheet music was pushing her into that intense surfer direction, and she was pretty unsure about the dexterity it would require to accomplish all of this.

Max had all but figured Chloe was asleep. She was trying to take her mind off of today’s weirdness, as the past few weeks had been pretty much a nonstop pit stop in weirdness, and it was working just fine. Max rarely had trouble avoiding rumination so long as she let herself experience the flow of something else, and her current obsessions, other than making huge walls of post-its about possible ideas on how her time traveling abilities worked and photography, was mastering this guitar. It hardly seemed to bother Chloe - hell, Chloe would probably love it if Max got good enough to actually perform. But that was months off.

And then Chloe started laughing. Out of nowhere. Her eyes were closed and she hadn’t said anything in a good half an hour, but suddenly she was laughing. Max paused her chord playing for a moment and sat the guitar between her legs, holding the neck of it between her fingers gingerly. “What’s up, Che?” she asked.

Chloe rolled onto her side, facing towards Max, and Max could see the grin on her face. She burrowed her face just a little into the comforter, as if trying to hide the smile. It was way too playful. Nothing good came of that smile - it often had accompanied requests for time magic shenanigans. But no such request came out from her thin pink lips. Instead, it was just the quiet words, “Max, you are a Jimmy Hendrix-tier guitar player.”

Max quirked up an eyebrow and leaned forward. “Well, that’s sweet of you, but I just started playing seven weeks ago. I can barely keep up with American folk - and nobody claims that’s hard.” She would have interpreted that as sarcastic, but it didn’t really sound like she meant it that way? Maybe: Max wasn’t the best at interpreting tone of voice, so Chloe might just be messing with her, but generally speaking, Chloe remembered the difficulty that Max had with that sort of thing and talked to her relatively plainly.  
And then Max’s eyes snapped back to Chloe, who couldn’t hide her grin even with the blanket. “No way! You didn’t!” Max just held the neck of her guitar, totally unsure about how to respond. She didn’t feel any different, certainly.

Chloe sat up all in one swinging movement, and she braced the back of her legs against Max’s bed, bringing her hands up in front of her chin. “Well, come on, rockstar! Try some more. I’ll help you with the sheet music.”

And so, Max began to play while Chloe turned the sheets. And note after note, bar after bar, page after page, Max could play flawlessly, until she had all twenty-seven pages completed with only the smallest of hiccups caused by Chloe’s turning of the page. And Chloe’s smile did not abate, but Max’s face just stayed neutral through the whole thing. When she completed every page, she just sat her guitar down.  
“Well, right on, Mad Max! You get a step closer to being a metalhead every day - and that was like, 300 days right there.” She gave Max a little punch to the shoulder, but Max did not reciprocate as friendly as she expected. Instead, she buried her face in her hands.

“Max? Babe, what’s up? Isn’t this so cool?” She was crouched down by now, having moved the sheet music’s stand out of the way, and now placed her hands on Max’s knees like a puppy begging to get up. It was a minimal way to display contact: Max wasn’t always the best with a lot of sudden contact, especially if she was stressed, so Chloe wasn’t pushing it while she was uncertain.  
Max at first just groaned, but after a moment, she let her eyes emerge from between her fingers. “I don’t want you altering me with your power. It doesn’t feel right to just . . . get a skill because you say so.” She ran her fingers through her hair, not sure how Chloe would feel in response. She knew it was fair, but Chloe was often petulant when it came to the supernatural.

And this was no real exception: “Oh come on, this is harmless! It’s not like it wipes your memory like your power does! I mean, seriously, this is so cool. You could be famous in like, a month on Youtube.” She seemed so excited at this possibility, sending herself and Max into a world of untold possibilities between the two of them with minimal forethought. It was perfect.  
Max just shook her head. “No, Chloe. I save us from embarrassing situations and dig a rebounded bullet out of your stomach, I don’t just adjust things to my whim.”

Chloe made a sound of disgust, and it was enough to make her slink back to the bed and fall onto it, pouting. She didn’t want a power she couldn’t use to its full extent. If, for some completely unknown reason, she was give the ability to alter reality, then she sure as shit planned on using it. And she was childish, so her words were cruel, though harmless they were in the abstract. She just said, “I wish Rachel was here . . . she’d get it.” And then she paused, staring up at Max’s little lanterns.  
“Hey, wait . . .” she began.  
Max’s eyes hadn’t stopped following her, but they opened wide in shock as she realized what Chloe was about to do.  
“Rachel _is_  here,” Chloe said, and Max just sucked in a deep breath.

Again, they just waited in silence. Max didn’t even have time to appreciate the rudeness she’d just been served from Chloe in the ‘wow my ex would have gotten this about me’ sort of way because she had no idea what was about to happen. But nothing seemed to happen, and this time, Chloe seemed significantly less disappointed than she did the first time around.  
The bluenette just shrugged, as if she expected nothing different. “Guess you can’t make the impossible happen,” she said, and just exhaled, wishing she had a joint right about now. As prone as Max was obsessing, Chloe was to detaching.

Then, there was a knock at the door. Max jumped a little, but Chloe’s eyes just slid to the door. There was no way. Max was up faster, because Chloe just found herself stuck against the bed, though she sat up. She leaned forward as Max reached the door, but when it swung open, all it revealed was a much neater, shyer Kate Marsh than before. In her hand, she held a single piece of paper.  
“Oh, hey Kate, what’s up?” Max asked, moving out of the way so that Kate could come in. Nevertheless, Kate just shuffled a little on her feet, clearly nervous. She scratched the back of her neck along the part in her hair.

“Oh, um . . . I just heard you playing a moment ago and noticed you had all of our work for this week done, so I was going to talk to you about it. But, um, I found this outside your door,” she said, and handed Max the paper. Meanwhile, Chloe waved to her, and miss Marsh provided her with a shy smile and wave back.

Max uncrumpled the crumpled poster and tried to make it smooth. Her eyes flit over it briefly, but then she wordlessly turned around and walked over to Chloe, shoving it in her hands.

Chloe took a second to adjust it, but she quickly recognized it as one of her hundreds of her Rachel Amber missing posters. While many of them had been defaced, it always bothered her when people took markers to them and ruined them, or stuck pins through them. And, in this case, she immediately saw that somebody had scratched out the eyes with what was probably a tack, and had taken red marker and written diagonal across it. It took a moment before she actually read the words, though, and when she did, her blood froze.  
It read:

## RACHEL WAS HERE

And she recognized the writing. It was perfect. And nobody could be so cruel as to find their hideout and to fake it. There was no way. There was no way. It was Rachel’s hand writing.

Chloe pushed right past Max, and right past Kate as well, provoking a little jump from the petite Christian girl. She was just in time to see the door at the end of the dorms swinging closed.  
“Rachel?!” She yelled, but the doors were closed, and while everyone in the dorms may have heard her, nobody outside could have.


	7. Prompt: Chloe and Kate have a fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a significant disappointment, Chloe lashes out at Kate.

Chloe Price was not somebody who had taken a lot of time to develop her skills. She had an excellent understanding of physics and engineering principles, and had even found that she genuinely loved geometry back in the seventh grade. However, following her father’s death, most of those abilities had fallen away due to a lack of use, and even if many of those abilities lay dormant, they were rarely accessed.  
Running, however, was one of those skills she never seemed to lose beyond the extent that smoking limited her.

There was a brief yell while Chloe burst out and presumably ran into somebody, but within perhaps half a minute of her outside, with the heavy steel doors separating Max and Kate from the sound, Chloe returned, her head hung, as she slowly shuffled back to the room. Max made no sound as she made her way back into the room and promptly collapsed onto the bed, burrowing her face into the sheets as if she were going to muffle a scream, though no such sound came from her. The brunette just sat next to her, pulled off her beanie, and began to pet her hair gently. She could feel the disappointment and shame leaking out from her girlfriend’s body, and it was not dissipating to her touch. These two were used to nonverbal communication in times of anxiety or intensity, as many situations rendered Max either near-mute as she struggled with piecing together phrases, or pushed words out of her so fast that they had no time to appreciate inflection or structure.

Kate, however, was not the girlfriend of either of these girls, and did not have the same nonverbal communication skills. She was still standing near the entrance of Max’s room, blocking Max’s class schedule from view when she finally worked up the nerve to ask the big, frustrated girl:

“So, who was it? It wasn’t her, was it?”

That finally evoked a response from Chloe. She turned her head well enough to breathe properly, and thus, after a long sigh, even speak. “No, no. It was just that bitch Taylor. It just … their hair is sort of alike, you know?” She rolled over on the bed, putting a little distance between her and Max.

Kate’s lips pursed, but Max just sat pretty still, keeping her hand on Chloe’s shoulder but still significantly more detached. Kate, for all of her wonderfulness, was nit picky in a rather specific way: “Why do you talk about her like that? I’m sorry it wasn’t Rachel but isn’t that mean? It’s not her fault.”  
Chloe’s eyes dragged across the ceiling and down until Kate came into sight just above the horizon of her own body. It was hard to tell at that angle from her eyes, but the rest of her posture indicated her annoyance. “What, calling Taylor a bitch? She’s hella rude to me and Max - fuck, to you too. Her whole gang’s full of bitches.” She shrugged, which was a little awkward, considering the angle.

Still, this seemed to really bother Kate, who shifted a little forward. Her right hand wrapped around her wrist. “But, I mean, don’t you kind of like them? Victoria, at least. I know you’re all sort of mean to each other but don’t you still kinda … why do you have to be mean?”

Chloe’s fingers twitched, which, was, in its own right, sort of a beautiful thing to see - Max loved the small details of her body in motion, of skin curling over muscle and bone. Her fingers twitched, but then they laced together under her head, helping her look at Kate a little more directly. “I don’t know, because they’re fucking mean? I like Victoria fine, Courtney is cool, and Taylor is probably the chillest of the three. But they’re bitches, and how I get along with them doesn’t change that. I can be a bitch too. Even you can be a bitch, making people feel uncomfortable with themselves with all your Bible when nobody is interested, or how you cough and glance away if there’s drinking, or stare all disapproving when Max and I kiss. You’re still okay.”

Kate seemed hurt, and shrunk a little. Max was gripping Chloe a little firmly, more nervous about what she was saying than she was trying to hint she should stop, but Chloe got the message either way. Kate wasn’t looking at Chloe’s face anymore. “That’s really mean, Chloe,” she murmured, unable to produce much more of a response. “We don’t have to be that way,” she added, a little louder.

Chloe sat up, bringing her fingers together in front of her mouth, joined at the tips. “And you don’t have to do that self-righteous thing either, Kate. Just let me be a bi-” Max moved towards her a little on the bed and wrapped an arm around her, and Chloe cut herself off, breathing out and letting her head fall into her hands now. There was a tense silence for maybe ten seconds, but then Chloe said, “Sorry, sorry Kate. I’m just frustrated.”

Kate was immensely uncomfortable, but she had no idea how to reject an apology. She may not believe it in the slightest, but she had the reactive respect to look Chloe in the eye and say, “It’s okay,” although well aware that it was not, in fact, okay. When she did, though, she noticed something sort of odd about Chloe’s eyes. While it was not unusual to see Chloe’s eyes massively dilated, it was very unusual to see the thin, thin irises seemingly glowing with an intense violet color. She froze as she inspected this, afraid at the surreal nature of the field of black and the rim of violet.

“I’m just … gonna go. Bye.” Max just nodded a little as Kate turned to leave, while Chloe waved.  
“See ya later, Katie.”


	8. Prompt: David Madsen is kind of a cool guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe just gets ready for the day. Pretty basic but kind of cute.

For the most part, things were worse on the nights that Max couldn’t stay the night, and that was virtually every night. Ever since David had discovered Max and Chloe were in a romantic relationship (which took him very little time in comparison to Joyce, who didn’t notice even the first time they kissed goodbye in front of her, thinking it may have been some Seattle hippie thing), he’d been very ornery in response to Chloe trying to keep Max over too late into the night, so that it was clear bait for the little time traveler to pass out. However, there was one small detail that was better, and that was that Chloe got to sleep completely naked and stretched out. It didn’t even come with the same stress as when Rachel would sleep over, as that had on multiple occasions involved the tiny blonde picking all of her clothes up and squeezing out the window before anybody opened the door to Chloe’s room, which was pretty commonly unannounced.

Chloe took a moment to enjoy the feeling of waking up, weaving in and out of consciousness as she was. The feeling of waking was undeniably the best aspect of being out of school - it was not accompanied by the sensation of fear or anxiety or hesitation. It was just waking up. But there was the bad part, too. There was the being awake. It was almost always a raw experience, because she would think of those stressful mornings, where Rachel would sneak out in her underwear or butt-naked, and how she’d hesitate at the last minute to give Chloe a smile, or to blow a kiss from the other side of the window.  
Chloe dragged herself to the edge of her bed, and dug through her drawers until she assembled all of the pieces of her morning ritual, calming herself with each step, until she finally got to inhale her morning cigarette.

When she was ready for the day, she stood at her closet, trying to figure out which pieces to complete today’s outfit. She wore virtually nothing but jeans and had only a small variety of coats, but had hordes of layer-able clothing and t-shirts. What was today, October 1, Tuesday? Did anything important happen around Tuesdays? God, did anything important happen any day?  
Ugh, she’d just find something that made her boobs look good. Honestly, there wasn’t a lot she could do with them, but certain shirts at least helped her look less scrawny.

Wait. Wait. No way. Chloe’s left hand raised and she slapped herself over her heart. “Fuck, no way,” she said aloud, and then tried to remember exactly what she’d have to say. She placed both hands over her breasts now. “I’m a D cup,” she said quietly, and was immediately rewarded.  
And immediately bust out laughing. Her power was so fucking cool like this was completely unreasonable. Max could travel through time but it couldn’t give her boobs like holy fuck _what_? Oh god, she had to show Max.

Shit, now she had to figure out the right clothes to show her. She needed a loose white tank. She fiddled through a few for a short while, and then settled upon one of a snarky skull. She pulled it over her head and smoothed it out, then stood on her knees on her bed, knees together, ankles spread apart. She grabbed her phone and lifted the camera up, tugging the shirt down a little to bring emphasis, and lifted a single finger up to the corner of her mouth. Ridiculous as it was, she’d done this enough with Rachel to make selfies like this work.  
She dropped a black and white filter on it and shot it off to Max, then got dressed, making sure to say, “Boobs, you’re back to Bs now” and found herself with something much easier to fit into her clothes.

* * *

Downstairs, Chloe was a little late for breakfast, but all that meant was that she forfeited the right to requests - there was still a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast sitting atop the microwave for her to re-heat, and mom and David were still milling about. David generally didn’t go into work ‘til noon, but mom had to be at the Two Whales by 9.

As Chloe stuck her meal into the microwave, mom spoke up to say, “You were out awful late last night - out with Max?”  
Chloe nodded a little, drumming her fingers on the counter waiting for the short timer. “Yeah, uh huh, her and some friends from Blackwell.” Chloe mussed with her hair a little bit, and realized that it was a horrible, tangled mess. She wished she had hair like Victoria’s, thin enough that you could just rake your fingers through it and get it to lie flat. Just to get it neat, she either had to wash it (which removed dye) or spend time brushing it (which fluffed it and required time grooming, neither of which were her favorite).

Mom was just getting ready to leave. “Well, that’s nice. It’s good to see you’re keeping friends in there.”  
Chloe rolled her eyes.  
David seemed to notice this, but he did not reprimand it. Instead, he said, “The security staff has been happy to see you back, Chloe. Principal Wells actually let me know the other day how much he respected what you’ve done with those posters for Rachel - though I think he wishes you’d asked permission to put them up. We’re glad to hear from you again.” He was still sitting down at the table, although he only had a tall cup of coffee.

Chloe scratched the back of her head, and pushed the button to open up the microwave to drag it out and test the heat of the toast. Satisfactory. Noticing that they were awaiting a response from her, she shrugged, and said, “Well, what can I say? Max is a good influence on me. Although I don’t think the principal is ever going to forgive the graffiti thing.” She sat down at the table across from David and started with her bacon.

Mom was at the door, and called from a point in invisible space: “See you later, you two! And Chloe, look on the fridge when you’re done, I heard about a job for you.”  
”See you, honey,” David called, and the door closed a moment later.  
Chloe groaned as her mother left, used to the collage of job and volunteer opportunities her mom left out for her, especially since school had started up again. Plus, she hated when David used pet names for her mom. She preferred to think of him as the guy who lived here her mom was great friends with.  
David turned his attention back to Chloe, taking a drink from his coffee. “Well, Chloe, I think he understands your frustration. It may not have helped that you keep putting the same message up but … we all want to know what happened to Rachel.”  
  


“Yeah,” Chloe agreed somberly, then just started to focus on her food for a while. Once she was through her bacon and starting on her toast, though, she asked: “So, what was the job mom found for me?” Chloe’s phone buzzed, and she reached down, wiped her slightly greasy fingers on her pants, and swiped to find that Max had sent her a row of kissy emoticons.

> **Chloe:**  no emoji!  
>  **Chloe:**  but I appreciate the gesture

David looked over at the fridge, as if trying to recall. “I think … it’s some gig working a Pumpkin Farm for the month? Granny’s Pumpkins or something?”

Chloe duplicated the Obama ‘not bad’ expression, and thought aloud, “Well, I could do something like that. I could be like, a scary punk ghost.” Something about that idea pleased her, although she had generally preferred more active costumes back when she still trick or treated.


	9. Prompt: Chloe says that Victoria loves her, and nothing happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get a little explanation of Chloe's gender identity. Then Chloe and Victoria spend a little time together, soon joined by Mark Jefferson, who eagerly awaits this Thursday's party for the sake of an announcement he is going to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The date is October 1.

Chloe’s ideas did not always match up to her actions. Perhaps most ironically was the way in which Chloe drove - she did not slow on turns and rarely ensured that she was entering driveways, parking lots, or other narrow areas straight-on, preferring to whip the back end of her truck into them as if she were a drag racer. Cars may equal death, but she felt no reason to avoid paying tribute to that fact. That’s one reason why she preferred to drive a truck - if she were to come that close to death, she was going to ram the motherfucker as hard as she could in protest.

Now that she came every day and wasn’t trying her hardest to piss off the security staff (who apparently liked her), Chloe actually took the time to park in the far corner of the parking lot where Frank occasionally liked to (illegitimately) park. Because she was so uncomfortable with the idea that somebody might try to get the jump on her as she left her car, she always checked the rearview mirror before getting out. By a streak of some enormous fortune, she was granted a look at Miss Victoria Chase in her car, a brush in one hand and a mirror pulled down with the sun panel. How annoying and time consuming it must be to day in and day out maintain stuff like that. Despite all of the aspects of femininity that Chloe understood and enjoyed, she had always felt a repulsion for beauty standards that seemed inherently exploitative. Like, businesses that designed their marketing tactics around making you feel like shit about yourself did not entice Chloe to be a customer.

This wording may seem absurd, but Chloe had for a long, long time felt that she was unlike other women. She certainly identified with them, and she was certainly treated like one, but she always felt that being a woman could not entirely encompass what she was - not that it should, but even gender-wise, it felt so lacking. Many aspects of masculinity, as she saw it, like a positive view on confrontation and hedonism, the rapid descent into romantic feeling, and a straightforward approach to sexuality, applied to her just as well as aspects of femininity did. She may have been too distracted this time around, but Chloe, if she could find the words, would say that she was just as much a woman as she was a man at heart, but never solely both. She had learned, long ago, about the success of people with androgynous problem-solving and stress-management styles in resisting stress over time, and it had made so much sense to her, though she struggled even now to understand what androgynous thinking even meant. She might be terrible at handling stress, sure, but she could solve the fuck out of her problems in whatever way necessary, given the opportunity. But, who knows? Maybe, maybe if her dad had never died, she never would have felt the need to take on such a masculine role, and she could have been more wom...  _no, don’t think like that._  
She exhaled, and opened up the door of her car.

As she passed by Victoria’s car, Chloe rat-at-tap-dat’d along the trunk of her Prius, causing the tall blonde to jump, hopefully ruining some key part of her ritual. As much as Chloe enjoyed that Victoria was beautiful, Chloe thought she’d like her better a little more fucked up. At least, visually. She was too neat, too pristine. She was just like Kate in that way - a perfectionist. Or, as Chloe preferred to think of them: people in denial.  
Victoria opened up her car door now. She held her makeup bag in one hand, and it was still open, but it was clear she’d stuffed her brush away, and she was getting out. “Oh, what the hell, Price?”

Chloe turned just enough to her right as she walked so she could wink and give Victoria a snap-fingergun as she made her way out of the parking lot. What she had not expected, though, was that Victoria dashed after her, and completely willingly began to walk with her into campus.  
Chloe whistled, “Oh, so I’m not just a heckler now, huh? Where may I escort you to, Miss Elizabeth Chase?”  
Victoria cringed with the regret of including her middle name on her Facebook profile for a moment, but then accepted that she needed to get some form of banter going to correct the severe imbalance between her and her new spellcasting compatriot. “Oh, shut it. Just because you can do like, magic and shit doesn’t mean you get to be coy all the time.”

Nevertheless, Victoria made no move to escape Chloe’s presence, and a smirk fell on the tattoo’d girl’s face as they strode and loped forward towards the girls’ dorm. “But, don’t I? What I say sort of happens now, and that sort of makes me the queen around here. You’re in trouble now - there’s a new bitch on the block.”  
Neither one of the girls noticed the fact that a small poodle dragged its owner in front of the school at that moment.  
Victoria just rolled her eyes, “Oh, you wish, Price. There’s a reason why some of us are dropout punks and others rule the school: don’t you go abusing what you can do. It’s rude and . . . creepy-” with such punctuality that it had to be faked, Victoria shivered, although it was totally possible that the actual memory of having been a dog the other day could be getting to her.

“Awww, c’mon Vicky, you know you love me.” Once again, Chloe realized what she’d said after she said it, but she didn’t see any immediate recognition from Victoria, so she decided to include, “and that this facade you’ve got going’s gonna crumble someday.”  
Victoria gave Chloe a pointed side-eye for a second, then raised her hand as she said, “You wish,” and threw out a punch, landing a rather solid one on Chloe’s shoulder.  
“Yow. Well, rwaar, gotcha kitty." It actually hurt quite a bit, but Chloe tried to play it off cool, though once she disengaged a little she actually rubbed her triceps where she’d been hit.

Then, Victoria’s eyes locked on a man in a suit strolling up through the center of the campus, and sped up to intercept him. “Mr. Jefferson!” she called, and he did not immediately seem to hear. However, when she got closer, and clearly came into his field of view near the fountain at the center of campus, she called “Um, Mr. Jefferson?”, and he turned and stopped, noticing her approach, as well as Chloe’s a few paces behind.  
“Why, Miss Chase, it’s good to see you. I expect everything is going well for the Vortex Club party this Thursday?” He immediately tucked the fingers of his right hand into his pocket while gesturing as he spoke with his left, as if to demonstrate that not only was he cool, but he was casual.   
Victoria beamed, and now that they were stopped and in a normal conversational distance, her voice dropped significantly closer to vocal fry range, “Why yes, of course. But it really would help if we knew what your announcement will be, so maybe we could prepare banners? Or something like that.”

Chloe finally made her way beside Victoria, giving her a bit of a bemused look as she recognized what was supposed to be a sexy tone from a girl barely into legality. Really? Straight into a voice like that, while being observed, while being less than half someone’s age? Well . . . maybe. It was pretty hard to estimate this legendary ‘Mark Jefferson’ guy’s age, but Rachel said he was well into his forties. He sure didn’t look like it.

He gave a little evasive chuckle, as if to indicate that ploy was incredibly obvious, “Well, now, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for any of my  _students_.” He put a particular emphasis on the word students, although emphasis on ‘any’ would have fit better with the words he was actually saying.  
“Hey there Chloe, I’m Mr. Jefferson, a photog-”  
“Photography teacher, yeah, I’ve heard about you from Max and stuff.” Chloe extended a hand out to him, knowing he would go for that anyway, but he just sort of smiled and took her hand to shake as well. He had a really tight handshake, actually. “I hear you’re sort of famous, actually,” she followed up, checking him over more thoroughly now. He really didn’t look deep into his forties, or in his forties at all. He never seemed to have developed that sedentary late thirties gut, and there was an overall tightness to his look with just an edge of artsy hipster that always seemed to hold sway in Chloe’s book.

He laughed outright at that, which promptly cut Victoria’s expression a little more negative as she quickly realized she’d been upstaged in the conversation. He was like this with Kate, too - it was outrageous.   
“Well, I wouldn’t say that, but I’ve done some portraiture over the years, just tacky black and white to most people.”

Chloe looked around, and quickly saw herself surrounded by black and white photos. Despite the fact that black and white was often taken as a cliche in photography, especially since the advent of the digital camera, Chloe quickly became aware that these were photographs of value. She had always admired Max’s photographic abilities, but walking around a place like this and she was swarmed with content far better. Still, if he wanted to play it self-deprecatingly, she could work with that.  
Still, Victoria couldn’t have all of the attention split off to Chloe: “Well, he’s just being modest; Mark has been featured the world over - he was supposed to work here back in 2010, but he ended up signing a contract with Vogue.”

Chloe’s eyebrows darted up, impressed. Or at least, as if she were impressed - it’s not like she’d never heard about this guy from Max or Rachel. Everyone spoke of him admirably, and, well, she got why. He was famous, attractive, and seemingly chill about both of these facts. “Well, I get some urban hipster vibes from all these pictures, so if you need a model, I picked up some stuff from Rachel.” This was not purely flirtatious - she imagined she could squeeze some money out of a guy like this, and, honestly, she needed it. She’d taken a loan out some months ago, just before Max arrived, as she had considered bailing out of town, only to find herself suddenly anchored. Max had thusfar refused to help Chloe make the money back up (she’d blown most of it exactly where she got it - at Frank’s) with her power, so she could really use a few hundred dollars as soon as possible.

“Well, that is a very,” he put a strange length to the breath in ‘very’, “helpful offer but . . . you knew Rachel? As in Amber?” His head cocked a little to the side and his body seemed to relax, putting a little extra weight on his forward leg.  
Chloe nodded, scratching the back of her neck, trying to sound casually. “Well, yeah. I mean, we were girlfriends for maybe, I don’t know, like a year? before she. Well.” She gestured to one of her many posters - specifically to the pile sitting at the base of the steps leading up to the main building, which for some reason nobody had cleaned up despite them being there for more than a week now.

He nodded, a grim expression falling on his face. Still, there was a first awkward silence following this statement, and even Victoria didn’t seem to know how to fill it. It lasted about eight seconds before Jefferson spoke up, “Well, I’m very sorry, Chloe. Although, I know you’ve made a big impact for Ms. Caulfield - I end up with a snapshot of you almost every week in her portfolio.”  
That prompted a little blush from Chloe, as well as further aversion of her gaze, although not just from Jefferson and Victoria, but away from all the posters surrounding her as well. She had probably requested a few of those photos. She had always loved being photographed by Rachel, and their selfies together had often felt like little works of art. She’d . . . gotten rid of most of those, though, when she realized Rachel wasn’t coming back anytime soon for her.  
“Yeah . . .” was all Chloe produced aloud.

Jefferson nodded, recognizing that he was in a territory he had no real right to, and took a little step back. “Well, Miss Chase, I’ll see you in class today. Give my regards to Miss Wagner for her hard work for the party!” And with that, he turned with a wave and walked towards class.

Victoria, for once, didn’t look pissed, though she stared at Chloe in such a way that left the bluenette a little uncomfortable. “I didn’t know,” she said, and then there was another pause. “About you and Rachel, I mean.”

Chloe shrugged, finally bringing her eyes back up to the blonde. “Yeah, I mean, it’s whatever. It’s hella close to class time, though, so I should probably go find Max.”

“Say hi to your twee hipster for me.”

“Yeah.”


	10. Prompt: Kate discovers Max's power (maybe through her journal) and is resentful she wasn't told

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate knows Max needs a copy of the October Country, and quickly finds a way to violate her privacy on that premise. However, she isn't the only one who has been violating people's privacy . . .

Kate always thought of herself as loyal. She had never been particularly social, and when she came into an organized setting she was either ignored or put in charge due to her exceptional organizational skills and simplistic views. Part of this image worked in her detriment, as people saw her in a Puritanical context - hard-working and pious, but an out-of-touch stick-in-the-mud. Nevertheless, when people were willing to get close to her, they were often rewarded with closeness to a personality rarely seen in someone so young: rigidly dedicated to the improvement of the world, keenly optimistic, and fun-loving. And, as mentioned, they were rewarded with her loyalty.

Kate had been helping Max all year in music lab and theory, and although they didn’t have the same AP English class period, Kate had recently begun to try and help Max keep up by helping her organize and discuss books from class, which was a common topic during their weekly tea dates. In their most recent one, Max had mentioned her interest in  _The October Country_  for the chosen Q3 analysis due Monday, so Kate stood at Max’s door, knocking, hoping to deliver it. It was only lunch, but Kate had just had class and remembered to do this, so she was hoping Max was in.  
She was disappointed. Max did not seem to be in - and it wasn’t even the ‘do not disturb’ nonreaction to knocking, as Kate couldn’t hear anything inside. Then again, that probably meant that it was safe to enter - she’d just have to leave a note with the book, that was all.

Kate opened up the door and was glad to see that she was not walking in on Max and Chloe again. She exhaled, that unlikely-but-possible stressor out of the way, and quietly padded over to Max’s desk, as though worried making sound would trigger an alarm. She found sticky notes on Max’s desk and quickly scribbled out a little note saying Max was free to use Kate’s copy (just be sure to return it!).  
While she was looking for something noticeable to sticky it to, though, Kate noticed a faux-parchment, thick journal sitting on the other side of Max’s computer, with little tabs and photos partially jutting out. It was clearly heavily used, both from all of the abrasive marks along its exterior as well as the sheer number of tabs and photos.

Curious, Kate peered towards the door, heard and saw no one, and thus leaned over to read the open page.

> _“Probably even weirder than the bunny thing was how Kate was acting when a human with Victoria’s personality. Even though she was supposed to be Victoria, she made all sorts of weird comments. Like, when she first turned back and I gave her a blanket, instead of just accepting it and putting her clothes on, she sort of . . . I don’t know, I think she was hitting on me but I could have completely misread it, but she just dropped it and did like a twirl. It was sort of sexy, though, which is not really how Victoria acts around me._  
>  “I totally had to rewind it. I just didn’t know how to respond to Kate coming onto me and I didn’t know how to clarify if that was what was going on. So I just skipped back in time a few seconds and left. Normally, I’d tell Chloe about a rewind like that, but she couldn’t see me use my power and I don’t even know what to tell her. Like, post-bunny victoria!Kate came onto me, maybe, except no she didn’t?   
> “I don’t know. I feel like Chloe might be mean to her if I told her about it, and there’s no use asking Kate about it - it’s not like she remembers anything.  
> 
> 
> _“A little later, Kate came by my room...”_

“Hey, Kate.”

Kate squealed and wheeled around, having not heard anyone’s approach. Max was lowering her hand down to her side, letting it rest down by her thigh. Kate lacked any item to hold onto as she liked to in scary situations, so she found herself grabbing Max’s chair behind her.  
“Oh hey Max I was just dropping off-”

“ _The October Country_  by Ray Bradbury. Yeah, I know, you fed me that one already. You were reading my journal and found out about my rewind.” Max crossed her arms huffily over her chest, and seemed to be waiting for more of an explanation.

And Kate really didn’t have one, because she was a little in shock at the moment, though you couldn’t quite tell because her cheeks were stained red from Max’s description of her. “I, um, I didn’t have a clue what would be in there,” Kate replied, which was perfectly honest. “Did you, uh, just ‘rewind’ right now? What does that mean?”

Max gestured towards her seat for Kate to sit, which she did, though she fumbled a little as she turned it around to sit in. Max sat on her futon. She raised her fingertips, placing them together underneath her chin, so as to mimic the appearance of being deep in thought. The explanation was rather simple, though. “I’m a time traveler, Kate. A chrononaut, I guess we’re called - that’s what I gather from the internet. A few weeks ago, Chloe and I were nearly in an accident. We swerved to avoid a deer and shot straight towards a tree. Right before we did, I raised my hand and . . . time went back. Not too far back, but we had enough time to stop, and we saw the deer pass in our headlights. With a little help from Warren, we found out I can create something he calls ‘localized time compression’. It manifests a little like . . .” Max raised her hand, and then lowered it.

Kate’s face pinched in confusion, not only because of the whole story, but because of its ending. “Like . . . like what?”

“Look behind you, Kate,” Max recommended, gesturing beyond Kate.

Kate turned the chair around, and found that the computer had been turned on. It was on Facebook, on Kate’s wall, from Max’s account. The most recent message on Kate’s wall?

> Maxine (Max) Caulfield: Like this, Kate.

The message, instead of having a marker of how recent it was, had a date stamp, as if it were an extremely old message. However, the message was stamped one minute in the future. At least, it was briefly - after several seconds its time status changed to ‘just now’.

Kate turned in the chair again, dumbfounded. They sat in silence for a moment, and Kate could hear the heavy doors of the dorm slamming shut. Somebody was walking towards this end of the dorm.  
“So, it’s the hand thing? When you suddenly drop your hand in class or something, you just time traveled?” A few instances quickly cropped up in Kate’s mind, especially in Jefferson’s class over the past two weeks. Max had been moderating class for a while - she was probably stealing answers! That was . . . super unfair. How many times had Max used it to get answers from Victoria, or even Kate herself?

Max nodded. “Yeah. My right hand sends time back, my left speeds time forward, though so far I haven’t seen if they can do anything together.”

If yesterday hadn’t been composed of about a two hour period in which Kate had been taken care of by a loving Dana because she had suddenly been a personality-switched bunny, Kate might have found this all hard to believe. But, instead, she processed this on a rather emotional level, rather than a (highly confused) intellectual one. And it hurt her. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Kate asked, barely above a whisper, her eyes focused more on the space between Max’s feet and her own than Max herself.

Ironically enough, it was probably Kate’s abashed nature that made her easy for Max to talk to, as there was no demand of eye contact and a freedom to be silent when desirable. But one thing Max hated was to feel like a bad friend, so she spoke up quickly - or started to, “Well, I mean, it’s been really-”  
Then, Max’s door opened again, and Chloe entered. She quickly registered that Kate was present, but gave Max a look for a subtle explanation anyway as she sat down on the bed.

“Yo,” she said with a wave, but otherwise just let Max continue, which she appreciated.

Max cleared her throat and regrouped her thoughts, “It’s been complicated, Kate. I wasn’t really sure I could tell anyone.” She said this last part with a shrug, as if to dismiss it.

Kate looked up now at Chloe, and then back over to Max. Her tone turned more accusatory than even she felt it should, “But you told  _her_. I mean, it says you tell her all about your ‘rewinds’, so why couldn’t you tell me?”

Chloe blinked a little, then just proclaimed, “Wow, okay, I missed a lot - I didn’t think it was that big of a rewind, you might have just had to clean something up or something and didn’t want to tell me. Kate knows?”

Max looked a little frustrated at the multiple sources of information she had to work through, but instinctively responded to the more recent information first, “Yeah, Kate knows but she freaked out a little when we both confronted her.”  
It chilled Kate a little to hear about something she had done . . . and yet had no memory of. It made her deeply uncomfortable just to imagine someone having access to power like that with a literal wave of their hand.

Max waved a little hair from her face. “And, Kate, I told Chloe because she’s my girlfriend, and she’s directly involved or present for a lot of my rewinds. Plus, she has a right to know.”  
That distressed Kate further. “Right to know? I’m your best friend, aren’t I? And I didn’t have a right to know? I mean, it said you’ve changed my actions, so I’m involved, too.”

Chloe shrugged, and spoke up before Max got the chance, which was well and fine with Max, who was a little flushed from being put on the spot, both by what Kate had read as well as having been blamed of using her rewind unethically, which was something she was still trying to gauge. “So what? I mean, she stopped you from being naked in front of anyone one time, and - oh, oh, this one time, Taylor tried to throw a nasty note at you, but Max rewound and caught it out of the air. It looked like she had crazy reflexes but apparently it took her like a dozen times to do it right.” Chloe had been waiting to brag about that for a while. Her girlfriend was awesome - like a super hero.   
Chloe gestured at herself with her thumb, “But, like, me? Car crash, then a rebounded bullet, then nearly hit by a train. Man, I need to plan around Max a little if I’m going to so much as go outside; this place has got it hella out for me, and she likes the credit for saving my skin.”

Kate was a little upset with herself. She felt excluded. And that made total sense - she felt excluded from the relationship between Max and Chloe because she was not part of it. But it hurt worse than it should - she wanted to feel like Max was looking out for her, too. And from the sound of things, she was, but at the same time . . . “I guess . . . I guess you two are just special. And I can’t get it. I’m not like some super hero, like you two.”

Chloe took less of the Kate not feeling great part of this and reclined a little onto the bed, thinking about how cool it was to be a super hero now. “Well, I mean. Max is like the cool sidekick or butler. I’m the one in spandex and tights.”  
And then, quite suddenly, that is precisely what Chloe was wearing. She was covered nearly head to toe in what essentially amounted to a morph suit, with two huge letters across her chest: 

## MP

Virtually the entire get-up was a light blue, with leather gloves and heavy but stylish boots. Instead of her classic three-bullet necklace, she instead had two single-bullet earrings, and the two giant letters were slanted into the interior of a V shape, connected by two femur bones overlapped in the classic skull-and-crossbones style.

Max jumped a little, although she welcomed the distraction. “Um, Chloe?” she asked.

Chloe looked down at herself, then shrugged. “I ain’t even mad.”


	11. Prompts: Kate Resents Max's Power / Everyone teases Victoria / Chloe uses her power on herself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honestly the title says it all

A door out in the hall opened. A moment later, there was knocking at the door of Max’s room.  
“Price?” came a familiar voice, followed quickly by a second set of knocking. “Price, I know you’re in there - I need a favor.”

Max rolled her eyes when she recognized the voice, and made herself a little more comfortable on the couch. “Yeah, come in Victoria,” she called, and a second later Victoria Chase opened up the door, though she did not immediately enter - it was a little packed in the room for her taste.  
And then she saw Chloe in all of her newfound splendor. Her eyebrows twisted into an incredulous expression, and she folded her arms haughtily. She was holding a disk between her fingers, so it made the motion a little awkward. “Getting your new powers brought out your inner geek, huh?”

Chloe shrugged, still smug at getting to be Chloe Catastrophe for a little bit, though the outfit was surprisingly hot and really didn’t allow for sweat to escape.

Rather unexpectedly, though, Victoria didn’t just continue her demands for a favor - she actually took the time to survey the room a little, and her eyes fell onto Kate. Normally, she would pounce in response to a vulnerable Kate, but since yesterday she felt a little shaky about that - not to mention the fact that instead of a three on one, it was a one on three. So, she decided to take the opposite approach. It could be useful later on, anyhow. “What’s wrong, Kate? Chloe been a bully with her powers or something?”

Kate just shook her head, and shot a side glance over to Max, not very good at producing lies, but still very much aware that Max was her friend, and that Victoria wasn’t. She wasn’t so quick to abandon loyalty, even if she felt she was being treated unfairly.  
Max sighed and swiped her hair a little off to the side. “Close the door, Victoria, I’ve got something to tell you. And if you spread it around, I’ll have Chloe turn you into a newt.”

Victoria took a moment to peer down at Max, clearly getting the raw end of this little deal. “Then can I opt out?” she asked, not wanting to get pulled into a situation like that. She thrived off of gossip, so being restricted in that way would tear her apart.  
Max gave her a dull look. “It’s a big secret,” she replied.

Victoria looked at them all in turn, and nobody seemed to really be meeting her gaze. The room was tense, and that helped to confirm that it was, in fact, a big secret. And the fact that they considered that a secret after the whole affair with Chloe only made Victoria more interested. “Fine,” she grumbled, and closed the door, then took a few steps towards the bed. “Scoot over, Price.”

Chloe re-oriented herself so her head was actually on the pillow and her feet actually following the length of the bed, giving Victoria a little ledge upon which to sit, which she did after smoothing her skirt and holding it close to her legs while she sat before crossing her legs and placing her hands, overlapping, on her knee, as if this were a formal business interview she was excited for. “Fine, what’s the big secret only the gayest can know?” For once, she actually included herself in her constant jabs at these other three, which seemed a little weird to Chloe - while the joke was always sort of ironic, it just seemed weirdly inclusive and out of context this way.

Max started fidgeting with her nails a little. “I’m a time traveler, and I cheated off you with magic a few weeks ago in Photography. And Anthro.”

Victoria glared through squinted eyes. “No way,” she remarked, “no fucking way. You’re trying to try and get me to believe shit because of the thing with Chloe.”

Max opened up her phone, messed around for a bit, and then turned her phone around and leaned forward so Victoria could see the screen. It showed Max taking a selfie, her face next to Victoria, who was holding her hand up to be excluded from the shot, with a photobombing Chloe in her superhero outfit appearing at the top of the screen. “I literally took this just now,” Max said, but Victoria only glared.  
“Nu-uh, no way.”  
Then, her phone vibrated. She checked it reflexively, and then noted that the text was from  _“Twee Hipster (knife emoticon)”_ , and the preview of it showed the same image. She swiped right on it, and noticed that she had three copies of the same photo, each one with a different filter. She pulled the images left to note the time they were sent - one two minutes in the future, one one minute in the future, and one just now.

“She’s telling the truth,” Kate supported, though her lack of energy about it was pretty impressive. “She documents it in her journal.”

Victoria continued to stare for a long moment, but then she seemed to deflate a little, and then replaced her phone and dragged a hand through her hair. She took a few deep breaths. “So what about you, Marsh? Can you like, lift a car over your head or something?”

Kate shook her head. “No, I’m nothing special.”  
Victoria’s lips pursed. Something about that bothered her. She turned her attention back to Max. “Other than just being a cheater, have you been manipulating us? Like, you get that it’s seriously uncool to use super powers to take advantage of people, right?”

Max crossed her arms, but it seemed more like it was to protect herself than to seem aggressive, as her arms still mostly sat near her lap. “I don’t think I’ve been doing anything like th-”

“So this one time, Nathan was being a total shit in Two Whales, right? But Max totally used her power to slam his ass. Knew just what he was going to say like some kind of mind reader. It was badass. But, like, she mostly uses it to seem less awkward.”

Max looked a little shocked. “Hey! You’re making me sound bad!”

Kate looked up at that, and seemed uncharacteristically angry: “Well, you know, you’ve been kind of a . . . uh . . . not nice! It’s not fair that you just get to do that. Without even telling anyone about it . . .” It was unclear exactly what Kate was frustrated about to Max. Was it the fact that Chloe and Max had powers, and Kate didn’t? Or just that Max hadn’t told her about it? Didn’t she understand why she’d like to keep that private? I mean, there hadn’t really been any circumstances to ensure that she had to know.

“Yeah, seriously,” Victoria added, backing up a little so she could shift her gaze around beyond just Chloe’s feet. “Haven’t you seen like, any movie with time travel? It’s always a problem. Plus, it’s bad enough that Chloe has something so abuseable. She’s shown she’s not going to be fair with that, so who’s keeping you in check, Max, huh?”

Shock colored Max from head to toe. Really? Did everyone really think it was so bad? Like, she figured she shouldn’t use it to extract information from people, that wasn’t fair, but just using it to smooth things over? “I . . . um. I don’t use it that much.”

Kate gave her a grumpy look, but it was less severe than a few moments ago, glad that Victoria was on her side. “How many times have you rewound in this conversation?”

“Ah-” Max began, then actually stopped to count. When she was done, she hung her head. “I dunno, five I guess?” Knowing full well that it was exactly five times. Her blue-haired girlfriend whistled.

However, it was that diversion to Chloe that shifted Kate’s attention. “Wait, wait, how did Chloe show she was unfair with her power? Everything she did was by accident?”

Victoria almost started to say something, but then she just stammered, and quickly trailed off into nothing. She visibly blushed, even through her matte makeup, and this drew both Max and Kate’s attention. Chloe just snickered, knowing exactly what was about to be said.  
“It wasn’t anything, really,” Victoria said quietly, dismissively.

But for people who were used to the aggressive bully Victoria, the seeming reversion to kate!Victoria was of instant interest to them. She was insecure about something. Kate may have had the tact to keep herself from asking further, but Max sure didn’t, “So . . . but, really? What’d Chloe do?”

Victoria ran a hand through her hair again, and paused for several seconds before continuing, “Chloe did her power thing, like, I think, and said. Um.”

This was just delicious to Chloe, who broke out chuckling. “I said she loved me.”

Kate inhaled as her hand came clapped over her mouth with shock, but Max was way too nosily curious to drop to something like shock. “So, like, what happened?”

“Nothing!” protested Victoria, but then realized what that meant, and retreated a little - physically from Chloe, and with her tone as well. “I mean, nothing. Her power didn’t do anything - it didn’t work. I don’t think it can change stuff like that.”

There was maybe two or three seconds of silence from  the other girls while Chloe kept up her chuckling, but then Max began to giggle, and a second later even Kate joined in, though she tried to hold it back with her hand a little, but a broad grin clearly plastered itself on her face. And that only seemed to feed back to Chloe, who laughed more.  
God, humiliated by these goons a second day in a row - not cool. “Hey, it’s not funny!” Victoria proclaimed again, but that only reinforced Kate’s  _hehehe_ s, and Victoria practically shouted: “She basically tried to mind control me!”

“Do you love me too, Tori?” Max asked with an oh-so innocent tone, and Victoria only continued to flush.

“Oh, shut up! All of you shut up! You’re so mean!”

“Ooooooh,” Chloe began, sitting up to sit a little beside and behind Victoria, “No, no, they’re fine. You’re all just little piggies, and I’m the big bad wolf.”

You might imagine what happened next.

 _“Oh my lord, Chloe, seriously?”_  pig!Max though, looking down at her unfortunate little pig feet. Then, she raised her front right pig foot.

“Oh, shut up! All of you shut up! You’re so mean!”

“That’s fair,” Max remarked, cutting off Chloe’s little retort. Chloe pouted, unaware of the catastrophe that had just been averted.


	12. Prompt: Chloe tries to find a way to see her dad again after her mishap with Rachel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe gets a creative idea with blank CDs, but isn't sure how she feels about the results.

Max was rather disappointed to discover no Chloe outside of her fourth period class at 4pm. Chloe was not the most consistent girlfriend, and sometimes that created these little disappointments for Max, even if they didn’t bother her for long. On her way out of Media Literacy, though, she discovered that she had an usual companion: a lone Victoria Chase. What was even weirder was that Victoria didn’t immediately say something when she was beside her, walking towards the doors to freedom.

“Can I help you, Victoria?”

The blonde nodded, but took a moment to respond, her eyes constantly scanning the flood of other students leaving the building or hanging out in the hall. Finally, “I just came to tell you not to use your . . . time powers on me, I guess. I don’t really get how they work, but don’t steal answers from me, or like revise our conversations.”  
Max just shrugged as she went. “Kay.”

Victoria’s eyes finally slid over to her walking companion as they neared the doors. “That’s it? You’ll just do it?”  
Victoria really wasn’t prompting much of a response from the smol brunette next to her. “Yeah. I mean, I try not to use it casually. But if you bully Kate anymore, I’ll still use it to stop you. You’ve got to leave her alone, man.”  
Victoria shook her head, “Try not to use that title with me, Maxine. But, fine; I can play nice with little Katie Marsh.”

Max visually located Victoria’s companions, and slowed her pace a little. “See you later, Tori.”  
Victoria only nodded in response, continuing her trot towards her friends as if she hadn’t been more than incidentally beside Max.

* * *

 

Max was resolved by the time that she opened her door that she’d just have to text Chloe if she didn’t see her inside, which, hey, surprise surprise, she didn’t. So, as she closed her door behind her, she pulled out her phone and sat down on her bed.

> **Max:**  You coming here today or is it a homework day?
> 
> **Chloe:**  Nah fuck homework. I’ll be there in literally like two minutes I just pulled in.  
>  **Chloe:**  I have an idea. Can I borrow your laptop? Just for a few minutes, probably.
> 
> **Max:**  Yeah, I guess. I’ll boot it up.

Max crawled over to her bed’s edge and leaned forward, and rapidly became aware that her arm was not the length of her entire body, and grumpily stood back up. She hit the power button, sat down in her chair, and rapidly became absorbed in her Facebook feed. Then, she got a text.

> **Kate:**  Max! You would not believe what just happened. Victoria just invited me to the Vortex Club party this Thursday.
> 
> **Max:**  Really?

Max got another text from Kate, but she did not check it because Chloe entered her room, one of those packs of low-capacity burnable disks in her hands as she made her way rapidly over to Max.

Max’s eyebrows quirked a little curiously. “Looking to pirate  _Game of Thrones_  or something? I mean, you do actually have your own laptop, just shitty wifi.”

Chloe probably would have rolled her eyes if she were focusing on her face, but instead she was focusing on dumping the disk tower on Max’s desk. “Oh hawr hawr Max Factor: no. I’ve been thinking about my powers, and what happened with my Rachel wish yesterday. So I hit up your boy Warren, and started talking to him about like, a book character with my powers, basically. And he said he thinks I can only transmute stuff. Now, you may be asking what transmutation is-”  
Max was quick to interfere in Chloe’s moment of triumph: “I’ve seen  _Full Metal Alchemist_ , you know.”  
Chloe waved her off quickly, “- well okay y’fuckin’ weeb but BASICALLY, I was thinking, if I can transmute stuff in a deeply specific way, then I’ve got a great idea on how to do that.”

Max just looked confused as Chloe opened up the case and pulled out the first disk. At least, she was confused until Chloe went through with her idea, obviously much more interested in following through with her idea than explaining it to Max: “This is a video of my tenth birthday; my dad is in it.”

A second later, sharpie marks appeared on the top surface of the disk until it read in thick block lettering: “Chloe’s B-Day #10.”

Chloe opened up Max’s disk drive, inserted the disk, and shoved it with several powerful fingers back into the body of Max’s laptop. The computer began its work on processing the information.

“Do you really think that’ll work, Chlo?”

The files loaded, and the computer asked how they ought to be read. Chloe slid the pointer over to a Media Player and double-clicked. “I guess we’ll see here in a sec.”

The program loaded, and then so did the file, a play button appearing over a black screen. There was a collective intake of breath, and then, Chloe hit the button.

“Whoops! Forgot the cap was on there. Hey there Chloe, Max, say hi to the camera.”  
The two girls in makeshift pirate costumes, mostly comprised of fake earrings and skull-and-crossbone hats waved, but there was a groan from somewhere off camera.

> _“Bill, really? You don’t need to film every event we have - we don’t even have that much film!”_  
>  “Oh, jeeze, we can get some more. Hah?” The camera turned so that Joyce now came into view, and she quickly moved her hands forward to obscure as much of the shot as possible.  
> “Oh, God, if you’re going to have that thing out, just let me hold it - go get the cake.”  
> There was some shuffling while William and Joyce exchanged the camera, and when she had it in hand, she turned it towards William as he made little sock-on-smooth-tile slides into the kitchen to start lighting candles. Then, Joyce turned the camera back towards Max and Chloe.
> 
> _“Just tell me when to start singing!” A squeakier-voiced Max, yet unaware of the value of near-vocal-fry, requested, with a quick, well-natured laugh in response from Joyce.  
>  “Well, all right Max, just a second. It takes a little while to light that many candles.”  
> _

It just kept going. The video just continued on through until the cake was cut with a ‘ceremonial’ mini cutlass and dished out to the few attendants, carefully avoiding the begging cat that hung around near William’s foot, as he was always the most vulnerable to pouting behavior. Finally, though, once the food was distributed, Joyce’s voice came out,

> _“All right now, but we’re eating. Let’s turn it off.”_
> 
> _Max and Chloe waved goodbye, and William joined in as well after a moment, the first bite of cake in his mouth._

“God. Fucking shit. It actually worked.” Chloe’s thumb was on her own cheek while her fingers dug into her other cheek, the band of her thumb and palm over her lips. Max had been rubbing her spine through the whole ordeal, but as the file ended and paused itself, asking if they’d like to rewatch. “For $4.99 I can buy twenty memories, each up to 750 megabytes. Shit.”

Chloe leaned more against Max’s desk than before, placing her head down next to the heat of the laptop. Now Max moved her hand up to Chloe’s hair, and began scratching her scalp. “You’ve got a lot of power, Chloe. I hope you know what you want from it, so you don’t make the mistakes I did with time travel.”

Chloe stood up a little, but she only grabbed Max by the hand and pulled her out of her seat. From the motion, Max sort of expected a kiss, but instead Chloe dragged her over to  ~~their~~  Max’s bed, and laid down, turning around soon afterwards so that Max’s arm was pulled around her, and her little girlfriend could attempt to be her big spoon.  
This was hardly a first.  
“Yeah . . . I’ll figure it out, Maximus.”


End file.
